Sylvia Plath Collected Poems
No. 155
The Babysitters
It is ten years, now, since we rowed to Children's Island.
The sun flamed straight down that noon on the water off Marblehead.
That summer we wore black glasses to hide our eyes.
We were always crying, in our spare rooms, little put-upon sisters,
In the two huge, white, handsome houses in Swampscott.
When the sweetheart from England appeared, with her cream skin and Yardley cosmetics,
I had to sleep in the same room with the baby on a too-short cot,
And the seven-year-old wouldn't go out unless his jersey stripes
Matched the stripes of his socks.
O it was richness!---eleven rooms and a yacht
With a polished mahogany stair to let into the water
And a cabin boy who could decorate cakes in six-colored frosting.
But I didn't know how to cook, and babies depressed me.
Nights, I wrote in my diary spitefully, my fingers red
With triangular scorch marks from ironing tiny ruchings and puffed sleeves.
When the sporty wife and her doctor husband went on one of their cruises
They left me a borrowed maid named Ellen, 'for protection',
And a small Dalmatian.
In your house, the main house, you were better off.
You had a rose garden and a guest cottage and a model apothecary shop
And a cook and a maid, and knew about the key to the bourbon.
I remember you playing 'Ja Da' in a pink piqué dress
On the gameroom piano, when the 'big people' were out,
And the maid smoked and shot pool under a green-shaded lamp.
The cook had one wall eye and couldn't sleep, she was so nervous.
On trial, from Ireland, she burned batch after batch of cookies
Till she was fired.
O what has come over us, my sister!
On that day-off the two of us cried so hard to get
We lifted a sugared ham and a pineapple from the grownups' icebox
And rented an old green boat. I rowed. You read
Aloud, crosslegged on the stern seat, from the Generation of Vipers.
So we bobbed out to the island. It was deserted—
A gallery of creaking porches and still interiors,
Stopped and awful as a photograph of somebody laughing,
But ten years dead.
The bold gulls dove as if they owned it all.
We picked up sticks of driftwood and beat them off,
Then stepped down the steep beach shelf and into the water.
We kicked and talked. The thick salt kept us up.
I see us floating there yet, inseparable—two cork dolls.
What keyhole have we slipped through, what door has shut?
The shadows of the grasses inched round like hands of a clock,
And from our opposite continents we wave and call.
Everything has happened.
29 October 1961
普拉斯《诗全编》
第155首
陪玩保姆
已有十年,自从我们划船去儿童岛。
中午,太阳的火焰垂落在马宝岬的水面。
那个夏天,我们带墨镜遮住眼睛。
我们总是在哭,两个被利用了的姐妹,在给我们的空房间,
在斯沃姆斯科的两栋漂亮的白色豪宅。
当那个英国甜心来了,那奶白的肌肤,涂雅得丽化妆品,
我就得和小孩睡在一间,那实在太短的小床,
那七岁的小东西绝不出门,除非他的条纹运动衫
有配套的条纹棉袜。
哦,那就是富有!——十一个房间,一条游艇,
抛光的红木台阶一直通到海里,
还有随船侍者懂得如何给蛋糕装饰六彩糖霜。
可我还不会烹饪,小孩令我沮丧。
每夜,我都恶毒地写日记,手指通红,
熨斗的三角形伤痕,因为熨烫细小的褶饰和花式袖口。
当那爱运动的老婆与她的医生老公去周游,
他们借来一个女佣陪我,叫做埃伦,说是“为了保护”,
还留下一条花斑狗。
在你那家,那个主宅,你比我好过。
你有玫瑰园,待客小屋,很像样的小药房,
还有厨子和女佣,你也知道酒柜的钥匙。
我记得“大人”出去的时候,你穿着粉红色
单珠地裙子,在游艺室那架钢琴上演奏佳答爵士,
而女佣抽着烟,在绿色灯罩下撞桌球。
厨子有一只眼角膜白斑,睡不着觉,她很是紧张。
她从爱尔兰来,试用,烤焦了一炉又一炉糕点,
终于被炒掉。
哦,我们怎会有如此遭遇,我的姐妹!
我们哭着闹着才得到一天休息,
两人提着甜味火腿和菠萝,装在成人们的冰盒里,
租了一条绿色旧船,我划,你盘腿
坐在船尾座位上,高声朗读《蛇蝎世代》。
我们就这么颠簸着去了小岛。那儿已人去楼空——
一个长廊,入口吱吱作响,内部死寂一片,
一切早已停止,可怕,犹如一幅照片,拍的笑脸
已经死了十年。
海鸥放肆地俯冲而来,似乎它们拥有一切。
我们捡起浮木小棍,赶走它们,
然后一步一步走下陡峭的海滩岩床,进入水中。
我们撩起水,说话。浓浓的盐分逼着我们上岸。
可我仍看见我们漂浮在那儿,彼此不分——两只软木玩偶。
我们穿过了怎样的锁孔,那关闭的是什么门?
青草的影子慢慢移动,犹如一面钟的指针,
而我们挥手,招呼,从两个相对的大陆。
一切都已发生。
1961年10月29日
No comments:
Post a Comment